Semi-daily hero tips. Day 37

INVOKER. Failed the title.

I dread the comments on this one...

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PREVIOUS HEROES

• Abaddon
• Alchemist
• Ancient Apparition
• Anti-Mage
• Arc Warden
• Axe
• Bane
• Batrider
• Beastmaster
• Bloodseeker
• Bounty Hunter
• Brewmaster
• Bristleback
• Broodmother
• Centaur Warrunner
• Chaos Knight
• Chen
• Clinkz
• Clockwerk
• Crystal Maiden
• Dark Seer
• Dazzle
• Death Prophet
• Disruptor
• Doom
• Dragon Knight
• Drow Ranger
• Earth Spirit
• Earthshaker
• Elder Titan
• Ember Spirit
• Enchantress
• Enigma
• Faceless Void
• Gyrocopter
• Huskar

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DISCLAIMER

A lot of you probably know about the weekly hero discussion, but that often ends up in a meta discussion (whether or not the hero needs buffs, etc) or a meme war than actual tips to play, itemize and build the hero.

This is what I'd like to do. Please discuss any notes I made and possible improvements while also giving tips of your own if you have them.

The roles, skill builds and item builds, as well as a lot of the notes are my opinion on matters and should not be seen as a must do or don't. Also remember that almost every single build or role is situationally possible.

A lot of the tips on heroes were also mentioned in tsunami's amazing hero tips series he did over the last couple of years.

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Invoker

Notes:

• Remember the passive uses of your orbs late game.
• Panicking? Throw out cold snap, deafening blast or tornado
• Tornado only really gets useful with more than one level in wex
• Tornado sun strike becomes a guaranteed hit with 4 points in wex
• Early game: cold snap + forge spirits and sunstrike. alacrity to take towers
• Teamfights: Tornado + Meteor + deafening blast
• Solo kill combo: Tornado/Eul's + Sunstrike + Meteor (+ cold snap) + Deafening blast
• Tornado can purge certain effects, like meld
• Alacrity is a very good spell. It can also be cast on siege creeps and forge spirits
• Forge spirits are very good for pushing throughout the entire game, they give armor reduction
• You can use forge spirits early to sit at the rune spot and deny the rune if it spawns there
• Remember Ghost walk is QQW, it is your main escape
• You can channel a TP and then cast ghost walk
• Changing orbs in ghost walk will cancel it
• Ghost walk can slow magic immune units if you put the debuff on them while they are magic immune (handy for kiting a raged naix)
• Other well known combo's to practice: EMP + Tornado, Forge spirits + Alacrity
• Ice wall is a very underrated spell, use it
• Versus:
• Pay attention to his spells. Sun strike invoked? warn team mates. Q/W invoker? warn teammates for ganks with tornado + EMP
• Get a roaming support to gank him mid.
• Forge spirit armor reduction stacks with each attack, so be careful if you're taking a lot of harass
• Invoker's Sunstrike deals pure damage.
• Versus QW: Spread out, 2-3 mana boots per team, BKB, get dust, orchid
• Counters QW: OD, Storm, Clinkz, KOTL, BH, Slardar
• Counters: TA (Refraction, good gap closer), IO (can jump right on top of you, makes your mid lane miserable as support), Oracle (Fate's Edict), Puck (phase shift, good gap closer), Chen, both ES' (great ganking potential on mid)
• Tornado can stack neutral camps.
• Friends: Brewmaster (alacrity on earth brewling = huge tower damage)
• Good versus: WK, Medusa (EMP, lots of kiting skills), Abaddon, Necrophos, Spectre, CK (lots of kiting skills), Omni (Tornado)

Role: Mid (, solo lane)

Item build: Bottle and/or wand, (Midas,) Phase, (Force staff, eul's, necro 3,) Aghs, (Skadi, Sheep, Orchid --> Bloodthorn, Refresher's, BKB, Octarine, Linken's)

Skill build: Max Exort (most prevelant right now) with value point in wex early for alacrity and quas at lvl 4 for forge spirit. After that get wex or quas in between depending on whether you want to teamfight more (wex) or get solo kills (quas)